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#game reviews tm
minas-linkverse · 5 months
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If your still interested in talking about ur opinions on zelda games... how about phantom hourglass
Phantom hourglass is a facinating one to ask about, because the feelings I have for it are so contradictory.
The game looks stale, at worst ugly... BUT it does have some genuinely memorable and fun designs and locations too.
The gameplay is jarring and hard to get immersed in, yet it also does some of the most fun and innovative tricks the DS ever got used for??
The music is nothing new, yet Linebeck's theme slaps extremely hard????
The story is odd, and has terrible decisions like making Tetra into a damsel and the odd choice of ending... 🤨
Yet... I love Linebeck. I love the ghost ship concept. I think Bellum is an excellent and underrated antagonist! The ocean king stuff was neat and oh how I adore Ciela. She isn't rly a character that got written well or respected by the narrative that was supposed to be about her... But what you can make it into with a bit of your own imagination is soo fun.
Not to mention how Phantom Hourglass has perhaps the best humour in a Zelda game and stuff from dialogue to cutscenes is so immersive, silly and lovable.
Phantom Hourglass is absolutely worth experiencing, and to many it'll be a real special hidden gem. Others like me arent gonna be able to get past the many issues... But I think its an incredibly charming clunky mess. I really like it. 💛
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shaddytheguyislazy · 4 days
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New video! Today, we get a solo Knuckles episode! And nothing else.
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solitarelee · 1 year
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Okay guys I have NEVER recommended anything here other than books and hashtag not sponsored BUT. I just got my Nike Go FlyEase shoes and they are a disability GAME CHANGER for me.
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[img desc: a person steps onto an odd looking sneaker which is folded partially in half. the shoe closes around their foot as they step down]
They are a funky little shoe that literally FOLDS in such a manner that they can be put on and off entirely without your hands; you can just step in and out of them.
The history of them is actually very interesting; the FlyEase line was always designed with disability in mind (the first one was inspired by a teenager with cerebral palsy, Matthew Walzer). They've been a thing for years but they never had one that particularly stood out to me amongst other similar shoes... until the Go.
You see, along with being someone who has only a few bends in me per day before it's all over, I'm also a fall risk. Like a comical fall risk. I've fallen into traffic. I will just roll over and die at a moment's notice. And most slide on shoes are unstable and slip around on your foot. This shoe clamps onto me like a goddamn vice. It's Got Me. It's also got good arch support which is like, a plus. By freeing up a bunch of bend-overs per day, this is going to leave me with a lot more ability and energy, especially on the bad days.
They sound too good to be true (I was VERY skeptical buying them despite the video review), but seriously, you can just step into them--and out of them by stepping on that chonky back heel there. God knows I'm not the only person with difficulty sliding on heels or tying laces in the world, so I thought I would be remiss if I didn't recommend them. If you think they might help you out, they probably WOULD, as they were recommended to me by Footless Jo, an amputee YouTuber, and as mentioned, were inspired in part by people with disabilities ranging from cerebral palsy to past strokes.
They're Pricey but ultimately average when it comes to Nice Shoes(tm), the ones I got were $125.
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welcometoteyvat · 1 year
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thinking about it again and my favorite sumeru subregion is probably the girdle of the sands (newest one, released 3.6) just because of the heaps and heaps of zoroastrianism refs and iranian mythology sprinkled all over the place it’s absolutely so cool. also sorush. 
#i forgot most of the lore after doing the quest ngl 💀 im sorry i will repent for not being a lore buff and having 0 long term memory#mostly what i remember is a) simurgh and b) some sickass quotes that i have screenshotted but forgor#looking through the wiki tho and til amrita is sanskirt cognate of ambrosia and represents the same concept of an immortality elixir#and then in game its used as something that can purify the corruption and forbidden knowledge that beings of khvarena gather ? pretty cool#oh the quote wasn't rlly related to anything but 'it is as if a thousand birds sing out at once and as if a hundred flowers respond' idk its#nothing special but i think the numbers should probably mean something. i just like it because it sounds so fairy tale myths and legends lik#like. awe inspiring or something#the barsom tree and the scenery around there is soooo pretty#the amrita pool too like what the hell the vourukasha oasis where all the pari are looks so nice#i'll go look at the lore later but the cultural refs insane#vourukasha oasis = cosmic sea ? harvisptokhm literally the tree of all seeds? simurgh sits in that#breaks off a branch... scattering seeds all over the place... sounds a lot like the khvarena backstory#also the pari designs are really cool imo and they did sorush's arc wayyy better than the racist lamp's 💀 shes just a cute little guy#ramblings!#i haven't reviewed the khaenriah lore that came out of that place all i know is fantasy iran is real ig /hj#oh forgot to mention the music mechanic with the drums and songs and stuff. that's so real. idk i love the motif there with like. sing songs#of an older age sing songs to remember#and also the thing that sorush has about wanting to be remembered through song. and the different takes on how Great Deeds tm are recorded#something something erosion and how to deal with it something something#god this was so long#symptom of not having coherent thoughts but instead some kind of random jumble of like 10 loose threads in my head ig
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blue-star-above-me · 1 year
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In light of recent events, I am very, very glad X-Play did not last long enough for them to review otome games once Aksys started localizing them.
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insertdisc5 · 2 months
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I finished ISAT yesterday and I can't get it out of my head. I will spread it to as many friends as possible. Thank you so much for making it. How else can we support In Stars and Time after buying the game?
that is a lovely question to ask!!! um um um this applies to all indie games and all cool stuff you like btw <3
✨✨✨ How To Support Something Cool After Having Bought The Something Cool ✨✨✨
-if you bought the game on steam, leave a review on steam! Reviews tell the Steam Algorithm(tm) that the game is worthwhile and cool, and so the algorithm will be more likely to show off the game!!!
-if you bought it elsewhere uuuuh leave a review on metacritic i guess????
-word of mouth!!! tell your friends!
here's a tangent.
Word Of Mouth For Dummies (written by me, a professional Word Of Mouther) ok so if you wanna make your friends play the game. here is my advice. or at least thats how i do it. i made all my friends play disco elysium and. ive even made one. play. umineko (everyone gasps in amazement) 1. dont be too insistent about it. so, GO CRAZY AAAH GO STUPID AAAH only ONCE. and explain the game in thirty pages there if you want. ONCE. THIS IS YOUR CHANCE. 2. if you know them well and what they like, personalize the paragraph. you like timeloops? thats for you. you like old ladies? thats for you? you keep beating me at rock paper scissors? Do I Have The Game For You. 3. now that you've gone crazy aah stupid aah Once, you have successfully PLANTED THE SEED. like in inception. no need to go crazy stupid again for a while. i know it's hard. but you don't wanna go crazy stupid too much. control yourself. for the Thing. 4. from that point on though, when the game is on sale, just go "hey btw the cool game i told you about is on sale! smiles smiles smiles". 5. every six months go "i was just thinking about a cool game again." "what cool game?" "IN STARS AND TIME" and you can go crazy aaah go stupid aah again. 6. after Some Time (from 2 weeks to 5 years) they will play the game. yes i said 5 years. word of mouthing is a WAITING GAME. little sprouts grow into trees. 7. they play the game 8. ???? 9. profit <3
-word of mouth, 2!!!! SOCIAL MEDIA!!!! tweet about the game! reblog other people's posts! make fanart! make fanfic! write a long essay about which parts made you cry! cosplay as the characters! make a video essay! just yell!!!!! you know how you only got into That One Thing because someone made a post about it? you could be The Post.
-(this one is if you want more merch specifically) buy the merch if it's available! the only reason we have a second Loop wave with the Yetee is because the first wave sold so well ;w;
-ummm that's it really????? that's already a bunch!!! but yeah!!!!!!!!!! ty!!!!!!!!!!
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The true post-cyberpunk hero is a noir forensic accountant
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I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TOMORROW (Apr 17) in CHICAGO, then Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!
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I was reared on cyberpunk fiction, I ended up spending 25 years at my EFF day-job working at the weird edge of tech and human rights, even as I wrote sf that tried to fuse my love of cyberpunk with my urgent, lifelong struggle over who computers do things for and who they do them to.
That makes me an official "post-cyberpunk" writer (TM). Don't take my word for it: I'm in the canon:
https://tachyonpublications.com/product/rewired-the-post-cyberpunk-anthology-2/
One of the editors of that "post-cyberpunk" anthology was John Kessel, who is, not coincidentally, the first writer to expose me to the power of literary criticism to change the way I felt about a novel, both as a writer and a reader:
https://locusmag.com/2012/05/cory-doctorow-a-prose-by-any-other-name/
It was Kessel's 2004 Foundation essay, "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality," that helped me understand litcrit. Kessel expertly surfaces the subtext of Card's Ender's Game and connects it to Card's politics. In so doing, he completely reframed how I felt about a book I'd read several times and had considered a favorite:
https://johnjosephkessel.wixsite.com/kessel-website/creating-the-innocent-killer
This is a head-spinning experience for a reader, but it's even wilder to experience it as a writer. Thankfully, the majority of literary criticism about my work has been positive, but even then, discovering something that's clearly present in one of my novels, but which I didn't consciously include, is a (very pleasant!) mind-fuck.
A recent example: Blair Fix's review of my 2023 novel Red Team Blues which he calls "an anti-finance finance thriller":
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/
Fix – a radical economist – perfectly captures the correspondence between my hero, the forensic accountant Martin Hench, and the heroes of noir detective novels. Namely, that a noir detective is a kind of unlicensed policeman, going to the places the cops can't go, asking the questions the cops can't ask, and thus solving the crimes the cops can't solve. What makes this noir is what happens next: the private dick realizes that these were places the cops didn't want to go, questions the cops didn't want to ask and crimes the cops didn't want to solve ("It's Chinatown, Jake").
Marty Hench – a forensic accountant who finds the money that has been disappeared through the cells in cleverly constructed spreadsheets – is an unlicensed tax inspector. He's finding the money the IRS can't find – only to be reminded, time and again, that this is money the IRS chooses not to find.
This is how the tax authorities work, after all. Anyone who followed the coverage of the big finance leaks knows that the most shocking revelation they contain is how stupid the ruses of the ultra-wealthy are. The IRS could prevent that tax-fraud, they just choose not to. Not for nothing, I call the Martin Hench books "Panama Papers fanfic."
I've read plenty of noir fiction and I'm a long-term finance-leaks obsessive, but until I read Fix's article, it never occurred to me that a forensic accountant was actually squarely within the noir tradition. Hench's perfect noir fit is either a happy accident or the result of a subconscious intuition that I didn't know I had until Fix put his finger on it.
The second Hench novel is The Bezzle. It's been out since February, and I'm still touring with it (Chicago tonight! Then Turin, Marin County, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, etc). It's paying off – the book's a national bestseller.
Writing in his newsletter, Henry Farrell connects Fix's observation to one of his own, about the nature of "hackers" and their role in cyberpunk (and post-cyberpunk) fiction:
https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-accountant-as-cyberpunk-hero
Farrell cites Bruce Schneier's 2023 book, A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules and How to Bend Them Back:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/06/trickster-makes-the-world/
Schneier, a security expert, broadens the category of "hacker" to include anyone who studies systems with an eye to finding and exploiting their defects. Under this definition, the more fearsome hackers are "working for a hedge fund, finding a loophole in financial regulations that lets her siphon extra profits out of the system." Hackers work in corporate offices, or as government lobbyists.
As Henry says, hacking isn't intrinsically countercultural ("Most of the hacking you might care about is done by boring seeming people in boring seeming clothes"). Hacking reinforces – rather than undermining power asymmetries ("The rich have far more resources to figure out how to gimmick the rules"). We are mostly not the hackers – we are the hacked.
For Henry, Marty Hench is a hacker (the rare hacker that works for the good guys), even though "he doesn’t wear mirrorshades or get wasted chatting to bartenders with Soviet military-surplus mechanical arms." He's a gun for hire, that most traditional of cyberpunk heroes, and while he doesn't stand against the system, he's not for it, either.
Henry's pinning down something I've been circling around for nearly 30 years: the idea that though "the street finds its own use for things," Wall Street and Madison Avenue are among the streets that might find those uses:
https://craphound.com/nonfic/street.html
Henry also connects Martin Hench to Marcus Yallow, the hero of my YA Little Brother series. I have tried to make this connection myself, opining that while Marcus is a character who is fighting to save an internet that he loves, Marty is living in the ashes of the internet he lost:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/07/dont-curb-your-enthusiasm/
But Henry's Marty-as-hacker notion surfaces a far more interesting connection between the two characters. Marcus is a vehicle for conveying the excitement and power of hacking to young readers, while Marty is a vessel for older readers who know the stark terror of being hacked, by the sadistic wolves who're coming for all of us:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I44L1pzi4gk
Both Marcus and Marty are explainers, as am I. Some people say that exposition makes for bad narrative. Those people are wrong:
https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/my-favorite-bit/my-favorite-bit-cory-doctorow-talks-about-the-bezzle/
"Explaining" makes for great fiction. As Maria Farrell writes in her Crooked Timber review of The Bezzle, the secret sauce of some of the best novels is "information about how things work. Things like locks, rifles, security systems":
https://crookedtimber.org/2024/03/06/the-bezzle/
Where these things are integrated into the story's "reason and urgency," they become "specialist knowledge [that] cuts new paths to move through the world." Hacking, in other words.
This is a theme Paul Di Filippo picked up on in his review of The Bezzle for Locus:
https://locusmag.com/2024/04/paul-di-filippo-reviews-the-bezzle-by-cory-doctorow/
Heinlein was always known—and always came across in his writings—as The Man Who Knew How the World Worked. Doctorow delivers the same sense of putting yourself in the hands of a fellow who has peered behind Oz’s curtain. When he fills you in lucidly about some arcane bit of economics or computer tech or social media scam, you feel, first, that you understand it completely and, second, that you can trust Doctorow’s analysis and insights.
Knowledge is power, and so expository fiction that delivers news you can use is novel that makes you more powerful – powerful enough to resist the hackers who want to hack you.
Henry and I were both friends of Aaron Swartz, and the Little Brother books are closely connected to Aaron, who helped me with Homeland, the second volume, and wrote a great afterword for it (Schneier wrote an afterword for the first book). That book – and Aaron's afterword – has radicalized a gratifying number of principled technologists. I know, because I meet them when I tour, and because they send me emails. I like to think that these hackers are part of Aaron's legacy.
Henry argues that the Hench books are "purpose-designed to inspire a thousand Max Schrems – people who are probably past their teenage years, have some grounding in the relevant professions, and really want to see things change."
(Schrems is the Austrian privacy activist who, as a law student, set in motion the events that led to the passage of the EU's General Data Privacy Regulation:)
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out-here-everything-hurts/#noyb
Henry points out that William Gibson's Neuromancer doesn't mention the word "internet" – rather, Gibson coined the term cyberspace, which, as Henry says, is "more ‘capitalism’ than ‘computerized information'… If you really want to penetrate the system, you need to really grasp what money is and what it does."
Maria also wrote one of my all-time favorite reviews of Red Team Blues, also for Crooked Timber:
https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/11/when-crypto-meant-cryptography/
In it, she compares Hench to Dickens' Bleak House, but for the modern tech world:
You put the book down feeling it’s not just a fascinating, enjoyable novel, but a document of how Silicon Valley’s very own 1% live and a teeming, energy-emitting snapshot of a critical moment on Earth.
All my life, I've written to find out what's going on in my own head. It's a remarkably effective technique. But it's only recently that I've come to appreciate that reading what other people write about my writing can reveal things that I can't see.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/17/panama-papers-fanfic/#the-1337est-h4x0rs
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Image: Frédéric Poirot (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/fredarmitage/1057613629 CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
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vivifrage · 3 months
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I think with Lightfall like. It's fun. I had a good time. A blast, even! Especially with the gameplay, even when I got frustrated because I was playing Legendary and I'm not a good gamer.
It's action movie fun. Which is what it intended to be, really, from all the tropes and the pacing of it. But it got bodied with sudden roadmap changes and Witch Queen as video game Oscar bait.
Yeah, I think it could have used a breather to bond more with Rohan especially, but there was in-game justification for going fast and I'm sure the format A Destiny Expansion(tm) limited the team. We saw it bad in Witch Queen's seasons, and Bungie acknowledged that yeah the seasons structure was limiting them. As someone who works in software dev, nobody likes having to make things worse. But it happens a lot. Sometimes in really bullshit ways that the software folks wouldn't expect to be that level of bullshit, let alone anyone who isn't working with the software day in and day out. And by bullshit I mean "massive overhaul of the entire system just to make one tiny change" kinds of bullshit. Again, nobody likes it. I promise you.
Back to Lightfall. It's a fun action movie. It's also the plot point we'd been hurtling towards since Witch Queen, and probably even well before that: The Darkest Hour. We're struggling to use this new power in time, the mysteries around us have unraveled but in the end it's too late for us to get the upper hand, and it nearly costs us everything. In the year beforehand, we'd been losing in one way or another at the end of the seasons: Crow kills the Psion, our rituals fail to stop Calus, Eramis gets away, Rasputin dies. The Witness accesses the Traveler.
What it also does is it sets up the rest of the year for our Triumphant Finale. We get a thread to follow - how to get into the Traveler - and chase it through the year, alongside other threads like what the Veil is and how we're gonna deal with Xivu Arath. As of the end(ish) of Wish, we've got our answer and are primed for The Final Shape as our finale.
But first we had to have The Darkest Hour. Which, in the short term, being what it is, is a bummer. No getting around it. It's also part of why comparisons to Witch Queen went awry, IMO.
Witch Queen is, as I said before, the Oscar bait, insofar as an MMO looter-shooter has Oscar bait. It puts the tangled web front and center instead of tracing one thread and then zooming out to show the whole thing. It's more philosophical in nature, sitting back and asking us whether we think we're special and what really separates us from one of the enemies we hadn't forged alliances with yet: the Hive. And, of course, if we'd noticed the puppetmaster behind it all. It ties up the question that's been going on since Forsaken: are we the bad guys? (No, not really, we're struggling to survive the way everyone else is. Which, nobody else we've been fighting is really "the bad guy" either.)
It's a really good storyline! I loved it, even if, honestly, I didn't like the gameplay as much as Lightfall. I think it's earned its good reviews and positive reception.
But it is the Oscar bait. And unlike Lightfall, its plot role didn't require the same downer ending. It could sprawl, and honestly? I don't think it would have worked as our Darkest Hour. Not without screwing up the story and making a jumbled mess. Seriously, I don't think Destiny's "everyone gets a second chance" philosophy would have carried well at all if The Darkest Hour was when the Hive got Ghosts. Instead it would have reinforced our misconception at the beginning of Lightfall - that we are the sole rightful Lightbearers and that the Hive getting the Light was a wrongdoing.
Destiny did need something between Witch Queen and The Final Shape. And they moved things - but announced it less than a year before Lightfall released. At their big press conference-y deal, but still. Limited time for folks to get the news.
And then it came out and it was an action movie, not Oscar bait. But it followed Oscar bait, so that's what the expectation was.
Personally, I'm fond of, say, Moonlight. Fantastic movie. Beautiful and heartfelt. I enjoyed it and I think it is worthy of its high praise. But if you ask me what my favorite movie is, I'll say it's a tossup between Pacific Rim and Mad Max: Fury Road. They fit different niches in the cultural ecosystem - Moonlight isn't a bad Pacific Rim and Pacific Rim isn't a bad Moonlight. Not unless you pit them against each other despite their vast differences.
Also I remember there was lots of complaining about how empty Neomuna was at first, but everything about the CloudArk and especially the lorebook is such early pandemic-era fiction.
Lightfall is a good action movie. Witch Queen is good Oscar bait. Both of them have their strong points and weak points. There are technical factors that limit things. There are other external factors that limit things (looking at you, upper management).
It's fair to critique a story but like, I dunno. Bungie's devs, writers, and artists aren't idiots or evil or out to get you specifically. Lightfall is fine but you can't - and shouldn't - expect it to be Witch Queen.
Please, for the love of everything holy, don't let us repeat the nasty bitchy maelstrom we got around Lightfall. Or I'll start shitting in ovens.
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lvrcpid · 1 year
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tiktok famous - modern!au
includes! : ao’nung being ao’nung. use of y/n. gn!reader
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if modern!avatar had tiktok!
lo’ak
— his @ is probably like @/yourmom69
— he’s so corny
— he doesn’t post anything but him doing tiktok dances
— he’s stiff as hell too
— HE GETS LIKES AND VIEWS THOUGH DONT PLAY WITH LO’AK
— probably some sad attempts at getting sturdy.
— probably looks like he’s gonna break a hip and throw something out of place
neteyam
— his @ is @teyams or something like that
— is one of those users who promotes his twitch streams
— he probably plays horror games and minecraft ngl
— his ass would make a minecraft village and make it all pretty
— occasional “thirst traps”
— they aren’t even really thirst traps it’s just him sitting
— THE GIRLS GO FERAL THO SO SLAY IG
kiri
— our girl is an editor
— behind the scenes QUEEN
— her @ is probably @/erenstanz
— mostly attack on titan edits
— pretty popular
— 1.3 million likes anyone?
— posts herself one in a while
— she most likely made her own logo and has her own little “producer tag” at the beginning of her edits
tuk
— QUEEN HAS A WHOLE SLIME ACCOUNT
— her @ is @/tukslimereviews
— the camera is always at weird angles but girlie makes it work
— her slime reviews are very honest and good for a 8 year old???
— PARENTAL CONTROLS.
— probably hacked it and is making fun of her brothers on a burner account
— tuk cyber bully era
— girlie reposts barbie reviews and watches those roblox roleplay videos
ao’nung
— LIGHTSKIN FACE TM
— @/theyhate_nung is his @ LIKE YOU ARE UNKNOWN MOVE
— always making thirst traps. like get a hobby
— posts his basketball highlights like someone gives a damn
— you do but whatever
— probably features you in a lot of his tiktoks
— “this my girl/boy/partner- “please shut the hell up”
— does that weird arm swing that the boys do
— ICK CENTRAL
— he still gets hella likes though.
— for doing NOTHING
tsireya
— her @ is @/reyatime
— she probably posts really aesthetic content like those really well edited day in my life vids
— probably posts singing covers
— FIT INSPO LEGEND
— does those big sister talks for her followers
— hair tutorials for her curly haired followers
— probably is really famous on tiktok ngl
— UNPROBLEMATIC QUEEN
y/n
— you probably post guitar covers
— your @ is probably something like @/(y/n)scorner
— or really aesthetic content
— you are gilmore girls
— you probably voice a lot of your opinions
— you do little ted talks
— probably dank humor
— A LOT OF YELLING IN YOUR CAR???
— yelling does equal funny idc what anyone says.
a.n // three posts in one day???? i am feeding y’all say thank you sae- no i’m just joking but i’m on break and have a lot of free time so TEEHEE love you baby gworls
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pickles4nickles · 6 months
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Pickles Played Persona 5 Tactica and Has Some Words
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I finally finished Tactica and its DLC sans some challenge stuff and I do wanna do some cleanup, but I thought I'd write a review for it.
It's long (like, 3k words long) and there's spoilers and overall... it's an Okay(tm) game, but... here, just lemme talk about it a bunch:
Alright, I'm not gonna mince words.
Persona 5 Tactica is not a game I can reccomend to anyone.
But is it a bad game?
Well, no.
But I have no idea who it's for.
Maybe it's for people who want more of the P5 characters? Not exactly? Both stories' focal points are on new characters and the Phantom Thieves just kinda happen to be there. There are some nice interactions, but this isn't a story about the PTs like Strikers.
Is it for people who like tactics but aren't really into P5? Well... it might be the other way around, actually? It's an okay tactics game with persona elements, but both parts of that are watered down when compared to base game persona and other tactics games like XCOM.
With that being said, lemme just ramble about what I thought about the story and gameplay.
THE STORY
The best way I can sum up my feelings about Tactica are "the story was told well, but I'm not sure if I liked it." This is a game that's less about the Phantom Thieves and more about Toshiro and Erina and focuses around the internal conflict of rebellion versus self-preservation.
Toshiro is probably why I'm neutral towards the game At Best. Erina grew on me but Toshiro...
Ehh.
At the beginning of the game, he's a big wimp and he's constantly telling the PTs and Erina that they have to be careful. From a theming standpoint, Toshiro's behavior makes perfect sense.
But from the petty bitch inside of me, this is infuriating because not only do YOU know that this is the Phantom Thieves that have taken down Shido (and also Yaldaboth), but TOSHIRO knows it as well and he's being Like This.
Like, he kinda sucks in the beginning and does so for the first two acts, understandably, but by the third act, when The Big Persona Moments happen, my opinion of him just kinda stayed the same. They swayed in a different direction, but... still on the negative side of the spectrum.
The reveal of Erina as Toshiro's Persona... makes sense. She's Toshiro's spirit(?) of rebellion and is based off of his classmate that once inspired him to stand up for himself and others.
Did I like this revelation?
Hell no, I was punching my thigh and screaming in voice call "No fucking way, Toshiro's so lame, though" as loud as I could without upsetting my parents in the other rooms.
From this point on, Toshiro now has the resolve to do what's right, even if it's scary... but he comes off as a little too strong in my opinion. I kinda have the same feelings about Zenkichi once he gets his persona in Strikers. In the beginning they feel like a new character meant to balance out the insanity that is how the metaverse is, but once they get their persona, they're full on inundated in the anime stand battles and they're a little too extra about it.
Having two full acts of "hey guys maybe we shouldn't help the hat people out of hat people slavery," pivoting into "WITNESS OUR POWER AS ONE" has the same vibes as a relative who's not really an asshole, but one that you've been trying to convince for years that economic inflation is the reason why our generation can't live comfortably, and once they finally understand, they come off a little bit too strong and righteous about it that you're not sure they're genuine or if this is a "he's a little confused, but he's got the spirit" situation.
And then god happens.
In persona games, I usually don't fully understand how or why the god-being is doing all of this, but I especially can't wrap my head around how they work in Tactica. It's mostly because Toshiro's metaverse is kind of a Silent Hill kinda deal where it's a mental torture labyrinth for him personally, as opposed to Mementos, which is naturally the collective unconscious, connecting everyone's minds and hearts together.
The jump from "I'm going to bully this one guy in particular" to "now EVERYONE will be as lame as Toshiro" is lost on me. Maybe politics?
It's... it's fine, there's no reason to lose sleep over it.
The ending of the story is nice and reasonable, though. It sorta redeems Toshiro for me. It's one thing to yell in your own metaverse hellscape how you're going to do the right thing, but once he's back in the real world, he actually stands up to his dad and fiancé and steps down from his political position to build it back up from scratch, but better.
And, yeah! I respect that.
That being said, though, the game isn't devoid of new Phantom Thief interactions. There's some good ones like Futaba "I don't kinkshame" Sakura, casually bi Joker as seen in that one "who would you marry" bit, and a guys only sidequest in which they think they're looking for Toshiro's porn stash (yeah, I know) (it's not). I wouldn't say it's crumbs, but you're not getting the whole loaf that you'd get from, say, Mementos Mission or Strikers.
The story also does this thing where the Phantom Thieves can relate with Toshiro's issues, but something about it feels... off.
Toshiro's in an arranged marriage with Marie for political reasons! Just like Haru! His fiancé sees him as a pushover! Kinda like Makoto! His mom died when he was young and he blames himself for it! Wow, Yusuke and DEFINITELY Futaba can relate to that!! Eri, the real person that Erina is based on, had to transfer schools because she was accused of a crime! Gee, that SURE sounds familiar-
Part of me thinks I'm being a little too unfair on the game for creating parallels like this because Strikers also kinda did this. But in Strikers, the PTs being able to connect with the jail rulers was integral to the plot. Here, it's just kind of a wink wink nudge nudge kinda thing.
And my knee-jerk reaction to that is a small "I get it, shut uuuup."
Again, and overall because I think that rounds out what I have to say about the story, P5 Tactica's main story isn't bad. It's told well, but I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of it.
GAMEPLAY
I've only played Strikers and I don't think I've played a true tactics game, so I don't know how much weight my opinions hold.
So um.
I dunno, the gameplay was fine.
The pacing is weird because it's kind of a visual novel first, and a tactics game in-between, but I got used to that after a bit.
It's a really simple tactics game and... yeah things don't get too complex outside of sometimes there are buttons that'll open doors or raise and lower platforms, sometimes height matters, but the mechanics don't get too crazy outside of certain boss battles.
The game revolves around downing enemies to get Once More's so you can either encase the enemy in a triangle formed by your units to initiate an All-out Attack or you can chain together Once More's to extend your unit's range and move them across the map. This mechanic took a bit for me to understand fully, but I never really got tired of doing it.
Boss battles were kind of hit or miss in this game. The fights with Toshiro's Dad and Salmael I enjoyed as they were kinda formatted as "here's a weird stage, go figure out what to do." However, Marie and *checks notes* "the scary Eri Natsuhara that Shadow Toshiro made" I didn't care for as much since they changed the game from "your decisions on where to move your units are key for this" to "you need to do exactly as we say." Which always kinda sucks, y'know?
Character selection is also kind of a weird thing in this, too. It doesn't seem like it matters who you take with you into missions, which... feels weird to me considering past Persona games. The elements have all been kinda smooshed down into less of a weakness thing, but just a special move that can hinder movement, do damage over time, or change enemy placement entirely, but which type of special you bring along doesn't seem to be as crucial as other Persona games. Each character has a slightly different attack, gun spread, and movement limit, but it wasn't anything drastic that I noticed apart from Haru (she is very slow but apparently hits like a truck) and possibly Morgana (his attack was very weak for me, but I'm not sure if that's because I didn't have him kitted out properly or that's intended).
I played the game almost entirely with Joker and Ann, while swapping between Erina and Ryuji for the last slot and I didn't run into any problems.
The last stretch of the game is... a strange one gameplay wise. Toshiro becomes a party member except... he's Different(tm). He doesn't get a skill tree, is a permanent fourth party member, and can initiate All-Out Attacks, but isn't a part of the triangle that forms it. He does have a gun, but it's in the form of a 0SP attack that Ernesto/Erina can use... that also happens to ignore walls entirely. And he also gets Almighty attacks, which kinda just do big number damage for way more SP.
It's hard to say if the game did a good job scaling the level difficulties to incorporate a fourth party member as staying on top of your persona fusing, weapons, and the skill tree can kind of make the game a breeze. I also played on the normal difficulty, so maybe in harder difficulties, Toshiro becomes more of a necessity than a party member that breaks the game.
My only big gripe with the game is just... the weirdness of the undo button. I don't know how it is in regular tactics games, but the undo in this game doesn't work on a "clear the last action this unit did" basis, but on a turn basis. If you happen to screw up on turn one, unit one, you have to back out COMPLETELY to the mission start screen, which is hella annoying especially if you're playing on the Switch because of the load times.
"But Pickles, what about the DLC? Surely you have just as many thoughts about it?"
Y'know?
I actually don't.
I liked Repaint Your Heart a lot. Again, it's less a story about the Royal Trio and more about Guernica, but it's closer to the traditional Persona 5 story format where they're changing someone's heart. This story also had much higher emotional... fidelity? I guess you could put it?
Guernica needed to remember her main inspirations for creating art - being abandoned and homeless and her big sister dying because of it and she embraces that anger against society into art that inspires hope in people less fortunate. While being groomed into a political pawn from basically birth and then, later in life, being thrown into your own mental hellscape sucks, in terms of emotional weight, Toshiro's story feels like a feather compared to Guernica's.
Also her design is just cool and the paint aesthetic is definitely more my speed.
In terms of Royal Trio content, I think this was the best case scenario we could expect from Atlus.
Emphasis on "from Atlus."
Yeah, we didn't get Black Mask Akechi, but there are MORE THAN ENOUGH moments where he lets the facade slip. His default spell is Megidola, but his skill tree lets him have both Light AND Dark spells. He'll cuss at you if you hit an enemy into him. I don't know what he's doing viscerally screaming half the time he summons Robin Hood.
Sumi. Is also there.
She is fine.
Guernica's connection to the thieves is also written in the same way as Toshiro is, in that it's a little shoehorned in and doesn't add to the story beyond that. After finding out that Luca is Guernica's sister that died, Sumi definitely feels motivated and inspired to help her out, but Akechi also being an abandoned child, scorned by society, and angry at the world because of it is never touched upon. This is probably for spoiler reasons, but... still.
Because this is a story that takes place during Sae's Palace in the main game, they all have to have amnesia about it in the end. Which, understandable, and at least no one in the trio had extensive character development but...
*clenches fist*
Man,
Having tackled this after the main game, I enjoyed the gameplay a lot! It's basically P5 Tactica but with Splatoon mixed in. When a unit is on a tile painted the opposite color for them, they can be instantly knocked down and combo'd on, which adds a whole extra layer of complexity to the game. I wish there were a few more levels to play, but the length of the DLC never overstays its welcome.
Hokay.
If you made it this far, congrats! You reached the end. And my tl;dr section.
I think that's just about it on what I cohesively have to say about P5 Tactica. This isn't a terrible game by any means, but I don't know if the audience it's intended for actually exists. It has a just okay story and just okay mechanics, but the DLC has a more than okay story and the core mechanics are given a fresh coat of paint (yeah, boo, I know) that makes the game more interesting. I would not go paying $80 USD to experience the DLC alone, though.
Thank you for reading my review if you made it all the way to the end! P5 stuff (well, mostly Akeshu) has been my muse these past few years and playing a game that was "just okay but why did they..." got into my brain real bad, so I wanted to write some stuff out.
I'll close this out with some bullet points of thoughts that I couldn't really cohesively fit into my review:
I really really liked how they got little costumes for the old timey Japan kingdom and I was hoping we'd get more of that and every kingdom was based on a new theme... but we only got three kingdoms and the last one before "Smithy's Forge from Super Mario RPG" was............ School.
SATANAEL'S BACK IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS (BUT ONLY POST-GAME)
Erina also being Ernesto thing is mostly weird to me because she's still her own entity but also not???? The possible genderfluid connotations are cool though.
There's a quest where Haru asks Yusuke how to be fast. Yusuke tells her she has to "Become a Black Hole." I do not know what this means.
After the quest, Haru says that even though the axe slows her down, she's very partial to it as her father didn't like her chopping wood as a kid, but she'd sneak out and do it anyway. She later found out that her dad knew she was doing this, but decided not to scold her for it. She took this as a sign of kindness from her father and that's why the axe is so special to her. I do not know what this means as Haru's father was a horrible capitalist who basically tried to marry her off in pursuit of power.
The weapon designs in this game are generally kind of silly, but I appreciate that they exist in the game. There's a chompy gun with teeth that Joker gets and I really like it :)
God the Lyn tracks from the DLC FUCK
...what
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Futaba says "sus" at one point in the end
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sonofanumbranwitch · 1 year
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Bayonetta has always been deeper character than people give her credit for.
So I have adored Cereza and The Lost Demon a lot more than I thought I would. But I was watching a review video on the game and one of the points they brought up was how the game makes Bayonetta "A more three dimensional character". While I agree with this, it got me thinking about how a lot of the more subtle and deeper aspects of Bayonetta's character are overlooked, even by people who like her.
There's always been more to her than "Dommy Mummy step on me please"tm who kills supernatural forces with style. Don't get me wrong that's still a huge part of her but she does have other aspects of her.
She is very protective and nurturing like we see in the first game with how she protects and cares for her younger self. In Bayonetta 2 when Loki is struggling with his memories she mentors him and gives advice. As much as she taunts him she is still trying to in her own round about way give him good advice.
She is a fiercely loyal friend who literally went to Hell and back for Jeanne. Regardless of whatever wrong direction platinum themselves take their relationship there can be no doubt Bayonetta loves and cares for her best friend. So much so that one of the only times we've seen her drop her confidence and actually panic is when she thought she was too late to save Jeanne.
Her relationship with her parents is actually very tragic. She was separated from her mother at a young age, and even came upon her mother's dead body during the witch hunts. Then she killed her own father thinking he was an evil bastard who used her and her mother. Only to then learn, no actually he did love her and her mother so much he was willing to destroy himself and his reputation to protect them.
Even her relationships with her mundane friends have depth to them. She goes from teasing Luka with her pet name to showing him she recognizes him as a person she respects by addressing him by name. Even the way she drags Enzo everywhere illustrates she has a weird affection for the little gremlin man.
Bayonetta 3's Bayonetta feels so much hollower by comparison because they made the stupid decision to isolate her for the vast majority of it. Bayonetta depth comes out in her relationships to both friend and foe alike.
Cereza and The Lost Demon does a wonderful job of putting her relationships to other characters at the forefront. But that three dimensional character has always been there. People just needed to look a little harder to see it.
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minas-linkverse · 5 months
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Feelings on Minish Cap?
Minish cap is a stellar game. Very much underappreciated and my top wish for what should get remade in HD. The soundtrack is marvelous and I wish I could listen to it all day but the ~bits~ of the good old gameboy just don't work well with my migraine prone head. I truly hope newer fans get to experience the game in all it's glory sooner than later and it get the attention it deserves!!
I think Minish cap has a very unique identity. It has a lot of familiar things yet many totally new and unexpected sights! It almost feels like a fan game, but in like the best way possible. It's got that indie pixel vibe of something made with love.
...asfjggsjkf sorry this is another love letter ramble. Minish cap has a special place in my heart. It was the first Zelda game I ever played, although at the time I didn't know any english and would just run around the few areas that are open before the first dungeon, and I'd slap grass for fun. I was easy to entertain back then.
Years later I found my old gameboy colour and finally actually played the game. It's a real solid entry in the top-down zelda game world, although it could be just a LITTLE bit tighter in gameplay. Link's awakening and Oracle of Ages just really keep you on the move in a way modern games don't seem to.
Also Minish cap just has the most iconic official art in the franchise.
Basically Minish cap to me is an image of childhood. We're currently in an era for the franchise that's openly pointing out the horror of it's lore. I think it's high time we remember the joy and whimsy of the series too. The games that bring back that feeling of being a kid in the backyard playing heroes! The hero trope exists as a tragedy, but also to inspire us.
PS. to clarify I think the game is incredibly solid as it exists right now and the reason I want it remade is not because the current version needs an overhaul, but because I know a remake would give more people easier access to a game that's marvelous and also I'd cry. If you have a way to play it right now like... Do it, yo. No need to wait for an imaginary product I invented in my brain.
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shaddytheguyislazy · 11 days
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youtube
New video! Tonight, we discover powers we never knew about (and probably shouldn't have).
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olways-lichrichure · 10 months
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Finished playing the first two games of the Zero Escape series and fellas is it worth playing the third bc I'm seeing very mixed reviews on it
Tbh probably will still play it bc I want The Lore TM but like yeah I'm vaguely curious if I should stop while I'm ahead
This series is making me unwell I need to put these characters under a microscope and study them
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2023 recap + 2024 plans
i wrote 261,200 words in 2023; 172,500 of those for Whispers, 88,700 for Goddess-Touched!
i read 16 books to completion, beta'd for an additional 2, am currently reading 3, and got partway through 5 others before having to put them down.
i maintained my streaming schedule with only a handful of emergency-related exceptions, and drew, uh, a shit ton over the course of the year!
writing goals for 2024:
fix Echoseers (full stylistic rewrite, along with some plot tweaks)
finish the first draft of Goddess-Touched (and edit it hardcore as well)
work on as-yet-unnamed book 4 of tms
fix up Whispers with the added feedback of beta readers
start querying Whispers (i'll look into self publishing down the road if i don't end up finding an agent. the way my brain functions i must cling to the hope of not having to market it myself tooth and nail for the time being)
POTENTIALLY. if my brain fixates on it. write the script for The Lost so that i actually have something to work with to make the comic happen
one of my offline friends is starting to get into writing, and im hoping to help them through some of the early rough patches and potentially co-write a thing with them!!
i completely dropped the ball on the weekly writing updates so im gonna try and get back to that on wednesday. and potentially get back into the weekly ask games!
non-writing goals for 2024:
youtube. i want to make speedpaints and worldbuilding videos and shit. ive already made the basic animation stuff to have a lil sona to do the gesturing for me and i know how to make videos i just havent done it in a While
twitch!! i want to stream a bit more often because its fun and if i let myself branch out into video games as well as art itll be easier to do that. u might see me streaming in the evenings sometime soon. (psst im not streaming this weekend as im still doing a shit ton of holiday/social stuff but the weekend of the 13th ill be back to both patreon and twitch baybee)
SPEAKING OF i want to get my shit together enough to do like. monthly short story releases for my patrons/ko-fi members. early access, that is, so if i post one in january, it'll be posted here a month or two later for all to see/read
i want to read as many books as i did in 2023, if not more! im also considering adding book reviews/thoughts to youtube or patreon/ko-fi perks
my weekend hiatuses aren't going anywhere. having time where im not actively engaging with tumblr + don't feel obligated to do Anything online has done wonders for my mental health and i highly recommend it. focus mode on my phone and leechblock on desktop has helped so so so much
and that's all i'm sharing here!! i hope 2024 is a better year for all than the last <3
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manonamora-if · 5 days
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June Check-In
My time as a benevolent tropical dictator has ended... time for some resource management retirement.
Bouncing for the summer. ✌️ I may or may not be online during that time. I'm not going in too much details, because it is IRL stuff that doesn't involve just me. I should still have some free time, but not as much as now. You may (probably will) catch random drops on itch.
Onto the usual index:
Recap of last month’s progress
Plan for the next month
The mega to-do-list tm that hasn't really changed.
Still long post under the break. If you want a mini version, head on over to itch.io as usual!
May Progress
Pulling out THE LIST from last month and checking the progress:
Play more games ✅
It's always a check because... there's always a jam we're doing with the @neointeractives, so there's always something to play. Anyways... this month fed be real good. Between the SpringThing (still not done reviewing), the Text Adventure Literacy Jam (have to queue my reviews - I placed third!!), the Dialogue Jam (you can read my thoughts here), the Locus Jam (lookie here), and the REALLY BAD IF jam (it's going to take me a while still)... there was a lot! But also a lot of fun!it also, unfortunately, gave me way too many new ideas...
Oh. It's also been one full year since I started writing reviews! And I've reached the 2nd spot on the IFDB ranking! Over 500 reviews to get there...
Code Chapter 6/Endings❌
MelS is still working on those, chipping away at the pages bit by bit, trying make that last chapter the best final chapter possible. But there are a lot of pages to go through... he's doing his best!
Fixing an older games. ❌
I mean, I bug-fixed my TALP entry, but I don't think that count (and there's some more stuff I could edit too). I've been too busy/all over the place to sit down and go back at it.
Write the next Chapter/Scene of a WIP✅❌
Well, yes and no. I've been revisiting Exquisite Cadaver in the hope of finishing it for real (but I got distracted...), and re-reading it... I've CRINGED SO HARD AT THE WRITING. Like :/ it's so not great.
So before we can make substantial progress in the missing rounds, I will:
re-write the already coded rounds (and fix the insane amount of typos
re-code them (duh)
edit the Interface (the template is a bit all over the place)
fix some other code
other stuff I'm forgetting for sure.
The prologue is completely done, and I've started on the rounds. I think I'll update the game when the re-writes are done. Then do an Interface/code uphaul. Then add more rounds (or switch 1 and 2).
I'm trying to keep this for this summer. That would be good. I think I could even finish it (knock on wood and what not).
What else happened this month????
Well, the organisation of the Locus Jam and the REALLY BAD IF, and setting up Neo-Twiny once again (@neo-twiny-jam). That's... a lot more work than just pressing some buttons 😅
On the writing side, I've written a novel as a Post-Mortem for Jeangille. You can find it here.
More writing... Well, I've mentioned being distracted a few times already this month? That's because... I've gone a bit overboard with tiny stuff. Here's what you may have missed:
I PROMISE I AM WORKING ON THE GAME (Locus/RBIF - binksi)
the 500 rooms game (RBIF - Inform)
Tomato Tomato (RBVN/bitsy jam - binksi - will be made better)
Cloak of Darkness (porting to multiple IF programs -> source code included to see how an engine works)
So hum... yeah. Not super great on the plan. The more I push it, the less I manage... But also I made fun stuff so...
Maybe on really cool thing coming out of this month is... GETTING THIRD PLACE FOR Lysidice and the Minotaur! With a strong average of 4!!! Which is SO MUCH BETTER THAN LAST YEAR!!!
The PLANtm for June
I won't have Tropico or most of my Steam Library to distract me in the next month. I actually will have a lot of IRL stuff to deal with. Aside from dealing with the Neo-Twiny Jam and Anti-Romance Jam organisation, you will probably not hear much from me.
Still, during down time, I would try to:
Play more games: I need to finish my RBIF thread, and start the Neo-Twiny one (if it's like last year, better start early!). And finish the reviews to the previous comps too.
Code Chapter 6/Endings: Still on MelS. Though I still could do some stuff... I've been putting it off since he's not made as much progress as we'd hoped.
Fixing an older games. Well, I'm re-writing Exquisite Cadaver, if I manage that and the Interface, that goal will be filled. Or the Tomato Tomato one.
Write the next Chapter/Scene of a WIP. And if I could manage to write one more game round for EC, we'll be golden!
Let's have a boring month! For realsies.
I'm also planning on just... logging off from the internet for long periods of time (the IRL stuff).
~
The 2024 To-Do List:
And now we're back at the start... SIGH
The hopefully maybe easy to handle To-Do:
fix the bugs in EDOC + overall the French version to match (waiting for Adventuron to get the French language)
fix the bugs of TRNT + find a way to add the missing pieces (giving up on the translation)
fixing the interface of LPM and the popups + check animal interactions
figure out the One-Button JavaScrip/jQuery issue...
edit the loading screens of the completed tiny games to include the program/format logo at least.
The 'Need a Bunch of Content to update but it's planned!' To-Do:
Update my website (bunch new title - also I don't think the logo clicky thing work...) + redo my itch page (un-stricking cause I need to update it)
Finish TTATEH (MelS dependent)
Finish Exquisite Cadaver (half-way mark by this summer - manif)
Finish P-Rix - Space Trucker (main path at least)
Update CRWL (it's been almost two years... I'm ashamed)
The Unlikely But it Would be Dope To-Do
Finish The Dinner as it was planned (and translate)
Finish In the Blink of an Eye as it was planned (and retranslate)
Finish The Rye in the Dark City
Fixing TTTT (at least fixing, maybe try adding some storylets)
And finally The 'It's impossible, but one can wish' TO-DO:
Remaster SPS IH (if I managed to start this after completing the rest... I'm going to eat a whole sheet cake).
Start the IFComp project (2025? Might end up being a ST?)
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